Remorse
by Sightless Angels
Summary: Atem is in the afterlife and he is actually having a hard time accepting the lack of knowledge for the thief's fate.


**A/N: **This isn't beta-read or polished. I'm sorry in advanced for any errors. I wrote this as a way to vent out an extremely traumatic event. I'd lost a dear loved one of mine. It hadn't been an easy death.

The village was quiet, though it stank of death, burnt flesh, blood, and gold. Bakura never thought that gold had a scent, but it hung heavy in the air. He looked around of what became of his home, feeling his stomach clenching. His lungs struggled to expand.  
He clutched his stomach, feeling bile threatening to rise up. He didn't want to get sick. Not now. He still had to figure out what to do now. His village was gone…  
He couldn't block out the lingering dying cries and screams from haunting his ears. The massacre ended a while ago before the sun had fully risen and the monsters who destroyed his home had left shortly after, but the sounds of his family, his friends dying wouldn't stop pounding in his skull.  
He wanted to make it stop. Bakura gripped the roots of his hair, dropping to his knees. He wanted to scream, as if that would help transfer their cries out of his mind, but he couldn't yet. The monsters might still be close enough to hear him and come back.  
Moisture gathered in his eyes and rolled down his face involuntarily.  
He couldn't get the expressions and the struggles, the suffering of his people out of his mind. Everything just wouldn't stop replaying in his mind. Over and over. The spasms of a village elder as he suffered from fit after fit as a result of a blow to the head. The wails of babies as they struggled in the gaping jaws of monsters before their lives were abruptly, savagely cut short.  
Bakura bowed closer to the sand, not caring about the blood and ash staining it. He choked on a sob trapped in his throat. What could he do now? He had nothing left. No one. He was alone. Completely and utterly alone.  
That thought broke the dam and a strangled wail echoed around the ruins. At first he thought it was maybe another survivor. Hope blossomed in his chest, making marginally easier to breathe until he realized the sound came from him. He covered his mouth, trying to muffle his screams and wails as everything came crashing down.  
He huddled as close to the sand as he could, almost hoping the grains would enter his throat and lungs and strangle him. But if he allowed himself to just die… who would avenge his village?  
The memories of the hours worth of violence drilled into his skull, replacing every thought. His sobs was only a chorus in the symphony of their screams and wails. It didn't take long before his ears didn't register his own sounds, drowned out by the memories.  
He sat there in the scorching sun and burning sand, sobbing until his throat was hoarse and he was sure it would start bleeding. He yanked at his hair, hoping the pain of ripping out locks would help ease the heavy agony that seeped down into his bones.  
But it didn't help. Nothing helped.  
Bakura slowly dragged himself into a building for some privacy. Maybe if he dozed for a few hours - when had been the last time he had sleep? - he'd wake up and find that it was only a horrible nightmare. He hiccupped several times as he curled up in a corner, hoping and praying that this was just a bad dream.  
He closed his eyes, but even in his dreams, he couldn't escape his new reality.  
When the sun set, Bakura jolted awake at the sound of an anguished wail. He covered his mouth, figuring it was him again, but another sounded. And then another. And another. He clambered to his feet and poked his head out of the building.  
Spirits, warped spirits, glided along the village.  
He sucked in a tight breath as he watched them. He… wasn't alone. Bakura reached out to the spirits.  
One turned to him. While indistinguishable, he knew this was his mother. The spirit enveloped around him like a cold blanket, and he welcomed it. Having the spirits was enough for him.  
He could become their champion and avenge them, put them to rest and free them from the hold of those monsters.


End file.
